


Emergency Contact

by PsychGirl (snycock)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 14:05:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15293148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snycock/pseuds/PsychGirl
Summary: Sometimes an oversight can have unexpected benefits.





	Emergency Contact

**Author's Note:**

> This was something that popped into my head as a response to the prompt for our third concrit session. I'm pretty sure there's a longer story behind it, but this is what I've got for now.
> 
> Thanks to the TS Chat concrit group for their helpful suggestions and support. This story is much improved by their input.

Hearing had always been his most consistent sense, so it was no surprise that it was the first to return. Beeps, clicks, buzzes, whooshes, each in its own unique rhythm, melding together into an all-too-familiar symphony. 

He was in the hospital. Again. Simon was going to kill him. 

Feeling returned next, in waves of discomfort pulsing out from his heart. Dull throbbing ache in his chest. Legs and arms stiff and heavy as lead. Head pounding. 

He opened his eyes, blinking as the black-pocked tile on the ceiling came into watery focus. Tried to take a breath; groaned as sharp bolts of pain sizzled outwards from his sternum, wrapping around his ribs. 

He heard someone next to him shift their weight, the molded plastic chair creaking under the strain. He turned his head slowly, trying not to jostle his eyes out of his skull, girding himself to withstand the look of mingled fury and concern on Simon’s face. 

It wasn’t Simon. It was Blair.

His heart lurched. He sucked in a breath as quietly as he could, clenching his teeth against the pain.

“Hey, Jim, how are you feeling?” Blair asked. His smile didn’t meet his eyes.

“Sandburg,” he croaked out, barely recognizable. His voice felt like a razor against his throat.

“Let me get you something for that,” Blair said, busying himself with a pitcher and cup. He held a straw to Jim’s mouth. The water was cool and sweet and slid down like honey.

He cleared his throat and tried again. “Sandburg,” he said, fighting to keep his voice even and calm. The heart monitor betrayed him, though, the slow steady beep giving way to a rapid tattoo.

Blair’s mouth twisted crookedly. “Guess you forgot to change your emergency contact information,” he said.

“Guess so.” Blair was thinner than the last time he’d seen him, his face more sharply defined. His hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail and he was deeply tanned. He was dressed in old, worn jeans and a blue t-shirt, its logo faded to near invisibility. Jim noticed a beat-up pack leaning against the wall. 

Blair followed his gaze. “I left as soon as I got the message, came straight to the hospital.”

“Why?” He cursed himself silently. That had just slipped out. 

Blair’s gaze dropped. His feet, clad in scuffed canvas sneakers, shifted back and forth on the floor. “I don’t know… I thought if you needed help….”

“Where are you staying?”

“Um… I hadn’t…I think there’s a hostel down by the waterfront. Hopefully they’ll have some space.”

Jim sighed and fumbled for the morphine pump, pressed the button. Maybe this would hurt less if he was doped up. And maybe the physical pain wouldn’t bother him as much, either. “Why don’t you go drop your stuff at the loft, get cleaned up, get something to eat. You know where the key is.” 

Blair looked up at him, mingled hope and wariness in his eyes. It reminded him, with a pang, of the first time he’d seen Sandburg – all bluff and chutzpah in a white lab coat, trying to convince him to go for the hippy-witch-doctor stuff. “Are you sure?” Blair said. His teeth worried at his bottom lip. “I mean, I would totally understand if you didn’t… after the way I responded….”

“Sandburg, it was just a kiss. Nothing to get worked up about.”


End file.
